Technology kills productivity........

Earlier today I was helping Brielle make a double batch of sugar cookies using my grandma's super delicious sugar cookie recipe.

Once the dough got too stiff for the mixer, I dumped the dough into a larger bowl, got out the large wooden spoon and stirred in the last of the flour.

"I just remembered why I don't like making sugar cookies" I said "I really don't like having to stir all this dough by hand."

Brielle said "I bet your grandma didn't have an electric mixer to mix the dough in the first place. Was she a very patient person?"

"Yes she was, in fact, she nursed twins until they were 18 months old, and during that time still managed to take care of her two other small children, make bread, do laundry, keep the house clean, make breakfast, lunch and dinner, take care of a garden, can vegetables from the garden and she even crocheted a queen size bedspread!"

Brielle chuckled and said "Obviously, she didn't have Facebook."

An illness of convenience

Max was quite sick this weekend. Monday I took him to the doctor and we got him fixed up with some medication so he could get better.

Sunday and Monday all he wanted to do was sit on my lap and play with my hair, or snuggle next to me on the couch and play with my hair. The poor kid was so miserable, there wasn't much that would console him.

Max isn't much of an eater as it is, but when he was sick, he didn't want to eat anything at all. I brought him whatever I could think of for him to snack on and kept his water bottle filled because he was thirsty.

Yesterday morning when he woke up, he was feeling much better. He was still too sick to go to school, but he was walking around and talking, and he was able to fill his water bottle and put it in the refrigerator by himself.

This morning when Max woke up he walked into the kitchen sat down at the table and said,

"Yesterday I was feelin' better, but today I'm sick again."

He looked and sounded OK to me. I got him a waffle (I even toasted it first!) and brought him his water bottle. He took his medicine then said "Here's my water, you can put it back in the fridge now."

Max was sitting at the end of the table that was closer to the refrigerator, and I was busy doing something so I told him "Go ahead and put it in the fridge yourself."

He then whines and says "BUT SICK PEOPLE CAN'T PUT THINGS BACK IN REFRIGERATORS!"

Apparently he really enjoyed having me wait on him for a few days when he could hardly get up off the couch. I wasn't going to go along with this when he was perfectly capable of putting the water away without my help.

ME: "You are not so sick that you can't walk over to the fridge and put that away."

Max: "No! Sick people can't do that. You need to do it for me."

Me: "No Max, you can do it."

Max: "PLEASE GO PUT MY WATER IN THE FRIDGE!!"

Me: "The fridge is not that far away, you can do it."

Max: "BUT I SAID PLEASE! I can't do it, I'm sick again today."

Me: "OK, so don't put it in the fridge, it can just sit on the table."

Max: "But I like my water cold!"

Then he got off of the chair and sat the water bottle in front of me on the table.

"Here mom, I'll put it here so it's easier for you to put it away." Then he walked into his room.

I left the bottle sitting on the table.

Later in the afternoon, when we came home from picking up the kids from school, Max walked in the house, saw the water sitting on the table and said "Hey mom, you forgot to put my water away."

I told him that I did NOT forget to do it. He then put it away.

A while later, Brielle started to make cookies. We were snacking on the dough when Max came over to the kitchen counter and asked me "What are you guys doing?"

Me: "We're making cookies." as I ate a spoonful of dough.

Max: "Can I have some?"

Me: "No Max, I'm so sorry, you can't have any. Sick people can't eat cookie dough."

Max looked at me and says "Well, I think I'm feeling better now."

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I've put up the most annoying Christmas song poll on my sidebar. Vote early and vote often.

Purple Christmas Cookies

Monday was the first chance I had to do any Christmas shopping. I am happy to report that after several days of "Power shopping" I am nearly finished.
For some reason, no matter where or when I start my Christmas shopping, I always end up at the same place.
Wal Mart at 1:30 a.m. Wandering around with a glazed look over my face, wondering what in the heck I am doing at Wal mart at 1:30 a.m.
I was in the toy department and found several strange things.
A play tatoo kit. It has a pen type thing that vibrates just like a real tatoo needle. It uses washable markers.
A 'three fingered ring' which looked suspiciously like brass knuckles.
And my personal favorite, the 'Alien in a test tube' kit. It comes complete with alien food.
I am not making these things up!
I have a question. Why do people bring their small children shopping at Wal mart in the middle of the night? WHY??????
Now if you are wondering why I don't shop earlier in the day, it is because my children are in year round school, and they have the ENTIRE MONTH of December off and I try NOT take 4 children shopping with me if at all possible.

Things I don't like about the kids being out of school:
#1. They don't always get along with each other as well as I would like them to.
#2. See #1
There are some things I DO like about them being off school.
#1. I get to sleep in :)
#2. No homework or school projects to worry about.
#3. We can do fun Christmas type things.
Yesterday, my cousin and her two kids came over for our annual cookie making activity. (O.K. It's only the second year we have done this, but I think it will be a yearly tradition from now on)



MMMMMMM don't they look delicious! These are the colors you get when you let 9 and 10 year old girls color the frosting.
The kids really had a good time. This was Max's first time making cookies, and he loved it. We gave him a wad of dough, a rolling pin and some cookie cutters, and this kept him occupied for the better part of an hour. For some reason, he thought that he needed to roll the rolling pin over the cookie cutter to make it work.


You should have seen his face when he discovered that he could eat the dough.

As with any fun project, there comes the mess. Believe it or not, I took this picture after we had already cleaned up quite a bit of it.
I'm not sure what the magnet is doing on the counter. I'm pretty sure we didn't use it for the cookies.
Here's a useful bit of information. Did you know that if you take a magnet and put it on your television screen, you will see a bunch of pretty rainbow colors around the screen? Slide the magnet around and the pretty colors will follow in a pretty pattern.
Did you also know that if you do this enough times, the pretty colors never go away?
Seriously, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!! One of our T.V.'s seems to have recovered from this experiment, however, the other is a lost cause.
We make the children use that one.

The A.Q.O.D. (Aaron quote of the day)
"Mom, do we belong to your side of the family, or Dad's?"

Jill